Essay by @martinbjensen.bsky.social on limitations of current aging clocks on metrics (accuracy, responsiveness, interpretability, stability, applicability, cost) in various intended uses (R&D, consumer health, clinical trials, FDA approval, medical care). norngroup.substack.com/p/do-we-have...

Do we have a useful aging clock?

13 years after the first 'aging clock' was published we're still measuring mouse lifespan and unable to run human aging trials. What's missing?

norngroup.substack.com

E11 Bio is excited to unveil PRISM technology for mapping brain wiring with simple light microscopes. Today, brain mapping in humans and other mammals is bottlenecked by accurate neuron tracing. PRISM uses molecular ID codes and AI to help neurons trace themselves. Read more: e11.bio/blog/prism

Notes from an excellent aging conference on the @norngroup.bsky.social substack: norngroup.substack.com/p/field-note...

Field notes: ARDD 2025

An exciting aging conference (w 995 schedule + drinks... thanks CH+DK organizers). Pharma paying attention to longevity like never before. New mega-institute. Clinical trials reading out end of year.

norngroup.substack.com

The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field? That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience A 🧵 1/n

Like the DNA of an organism, the Constitution assembled around itself a vast substrate, of people chasing dreams and stumbling on the way, of physical transformation, of thoughts that bend history. As complex life arises from simple nutrients, so does a land of opportunity arise from simple ideas.

In 1 month, BEACON has already reported 181 disease events & 381 individual reports. We're excited to announce that starting June 2nd, BEACON will be sending a free Weekly Disease Event Digest on Mondays to help you stay informed about emerging threats globally. Sign up below!

BEACON@beaconbio.bsky.social · last yr.

Starting on Monday, BEACON will be sending a weekly Disease Event Digest newsletter with summaries of infectious disease events over the previous week from around the world. If you haven’t signed up yet, subscribe here: http://spr.ly/63324NfQh8

For anyone who wants to understand how medicines are made, from nature and by design, with historical context and amazing stories, The Drug Hunters is hard to beat: www.amazon.com/dp/162872718...

Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines

Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines [Kirsch, Donald R., Ogas, Ogi] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines

amazon.com

people get mad at me when I say this but it's a Serious Problem for bluesky's long-term viability that the userbase actively tries to bully people they don't like off here

Cooper Lund@cooperlund.online · last yr.

The problem is that Bluesky is still a niche platform at 1.3 Mil active users per day globally. Getting your boss to say yes to making an account and dedicating the time and effort to maintaining it means they need to see positives for that investment. A middle finger isn’t a good return.

Hopefully things change here, as my big worry about AI talk on this site is that people are being misled about the capabilities of AI by influencers who are telling them what they want to hear. AI is not going away, it will impact all of our futures, and it needs more voices shaping its direction.

After consideration, I will post occasionally, but heavily censor what I share compared to other sites. I tried making the transition, but talking about AI here is just really fraught in ways that are tough to mitigate & make it hard to have good discussions (the point of social!). Maybe it changes

The problem is that Bluesky is still a niche platform at 1.3 Mil active users per day globally. Getting your boss to say yes to making an account and dedicating the time and effort to maintaining it means they need to see positives for that investment. A middle finger isn’t a good return.

rimidar@rimidar.au · last yr.

Like I’m not saying being a political staffer is some dream sinecure because it very much isn’t - shit hours, demands that would be excessive in any other job - but if you’re gonna take that career path, you can’t just excise certain vectors of community engagement because they’re challenging.

This news should instill urgency and remind us to ask ‘why not sooner?’. @martinbjensen.bsky.social shared a long-term vision for how cures could become abundant, if we believe fast, systematic cure discovery is possible, and build the tools to make it happen. www.gordian.bio/blog/cures-o...

Cures On Demand - Gordian Biotechnology

gordian.bio

Emily Mullin@emilymullin.bsky.social · last yr.

KJ Muldoon was born in August with a rare, life-threatening metabolic disease. Six months later, he received a Crispr treatment made just for him to address the disease-causing misspelling in his DNA. My latest for @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/a-baby...

1/ A long standing paradox in my mind (from always seeing immune "strength" or reactivity drawn as a spectrum from immunodeficiency to autoimmunity) was resolved this year at #AAI #Immunology2025. WHY do SO many people have both simultaneously? Each infection brings risk of developing autoimmunity!!

"Understanding an idea meant entangling it so thoroughly with all the other symbols in your mind that it changed the way you thought about everything." @gregegansf.bsky.social

I've started blogging on substack to provide a bit more depth. Rationale is provided in the first blog. I'm using some great artwork, but I've lost the source, so the great person who created FDA as Humpty Dumpty--please identify yourself! substack.com/home/post/p-...

Why Blog?

We are living in extraordinary times.

substack.com

New Harvard website is amazing.

@hanascientist.bsky.social and I wrote up some thoughts grappling with rising animosity and mistrust of scientists and their institutions. Would love feedback and responses. www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10....

How Did Scientists Become the Enemy? | GEN Biotechnology

GEN Biotechnology

liebertpub.com

Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine, has been captive to the hard-line immigration policies of the Trump administration for nearly eight weeks. She fears arrest if she is deported.

She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her

President Trump’s immigration crackdown ensnared Kseniia Petrova, a scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine. She fears arrest if she is deported there.

nytimes.com

Appreciate everyone pushing science forward in these days. Marton Meszaros wrote a great primer on what an #aging #biomarker needs to look like, and more importantly what the prerequisite datasets are. Punchline: We may need to build them out, and should start now. norn.group/writing/data...

Any scientists want to help with a science communication project? Will reach thousands on TikTok! Details⬇️

I've created a shareable document with a list of the HHS offices gutted today that I'll be updating as often as possible. Have something to add? Message marisakabas.04 on Signal or email MKwrites4000@proton.me docs.google.com/document/d/1...

HHS RIF running list

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) • Division of Reproductive Health • Division of pop health • Behavioral and clinical surveillance branch • Epidemiology ...

docs.google.com

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · last yr.

New — Here is a running list of Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) offices that have either been fully eliminated or gutted into non-functionality as a result of today's mass firings (provided to me directly by a CDC staffer):

Is it time to start splitting this governance experiment into a test and a control group? I mean, we have 50 states to work with, let's do some real economics and social science here.

Aged well

Dustin Moskovitz@moskov.goodventures.org · last yr.

On the one hand, this is so obviously bad that it seems like just some deliberately leaked bluster to try to get negotiation leverage, but on the other hand, the last few times I said that to myself they went ahead and did the obviously bad things anyway because it felt satisfying in the moment.

What are some mappings from deleterious cravings to the real need that satisfies the craving? e. g. When you feel like eating candy, what you actually want is fruit. When you feel like playing videogames, what you actually want is progress and accomplishment. Etc.

I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.

UPDATE: So excited to announce our newest program. Using a 15-week cohort model, goal is help more scientists design the type of ambitious research programs that were critical to advancements such as the Internet or mRNA vaccines. We plan to do multiple cohorts this year (info below).

Renaissance Philanthropy@renphil21.bsky.social · last yr.

Today we launched the Big if True Science (BiTS) Accelerator—an accelerator to train scientists & researchers in designing and executing bold, field-changing coordinated research programs. Powered by our partnership with @aria-research.bsky.social, BiTS will launch its first cohort in Spring 2025.

Sad, Marks was very forward thinking and should have been part of any effort to make FDA more effective.

Jonathan Rockoff@jonathanrockoff.bsky.social · last yr.

Breaking: The FDA's top vaccine official was pushed out and resigned today from the agency, @lizessleywhyte.bsky.social reports

San Francisco license plates South San Francisco license plates

our work on the molecular differences between transcription factor isoforms is out now in Molecular Cell! key point: 2/3rds of TF isos differ in properties like DNA binding & transcriptional activity many are "negative regulators" & misexpressed in cancer www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Obvi we’re all in this together with this admin, but industry is not selling one’s soul, not even close. They’re our friends and colleagues and move the ball forward to getting science to impact peoples’ lives.